The End of Summer Tubbing Season! Let's See How It Turned Out!

[@audrameyer9558]

Those darn frogs!! They are lucky they are so cute 🤭 I am so glad that you got good results from the fish you most wanted! I look forward to your posts on next year's outdoor ponds!

[@FishTankBarn]

Thanks Audra. I had someone give me a new tub for next year! Looking forward to it.

[@gregjonesonline]

interesting results, i havent taken my tubs down yet, next year you should try some larger tubs, dig them into the ground for thermal stability, and put covers over them to keep frogs and dragonflies out, thanks for sharing!

[@FishTankBarn]

I had them in the ground in past. I would rather have them easier to move. I’ll pribably look into some sort of cover for next year as well. Thanks for the info

[@drockingfish]

Nice! Its been 90s here this week, so i am leaving my tubs a little longer

[@FishTankBarn]

It was warm last week here too and lows in the 50s a week before.

[@LushSaltyAquariums]

Yup. Go what with works!

[@FishTankBarn]

For sure.

[@georgweyand88]

Hello Mike, I usually put a sturdy 3 foot high fence (approx. half inch squares) tightly around my tubs to prevent raccoons from killing my fish and water lilies. The fence is open on top so I am able to feed my fish although the fence can very easily lifted up. If a fish jumps out of the water, it might bounce of the fence and fall back into the tub. Having said that, I still lose some fish, around two per tub due to death of natural causes. I also select a shady area for the tubs. In the sun, despite a full cover of water lilies, the fish will get cooked and die which was a painful lesson I had to learn two summers ago. Hope that helps.

[@FishTankBarn]

Thanks for all of the info. I may consider doing a fence in the future.

[@Cgraseck]

Nice. I put some Indian Rice Fish out this year. Usually I get lots and lots of fry. This year only 15 or so. Cheers, Chris

[@FishTankBarn]

Thanks! Too bad you didn’t get as many rice fish this year.

[@tjautocross]

Glad to see you had success with the eiseni, Mike. Tough break on the others, but it’s so unpredictable how things will turn out at the end of the season. I’ll be pulling my tub down in the coming weeks. Hoping I have a decent group of fry to bring inside.

[@FishTankBarn]

Yeah it was definately a mixed bag this year. Someone gave me a new tub for next as well.

[@AE6YT-Glenn]

Hmmm. Maybe I should start up an outside tub or two. Take care.

[@FishTankBarn]

For sure. It’s definately a lot fun!

[@MacPNW]

My xenotoca also did well this summer. As did two variety of endlers. Everything else pretty much fizzled.

[@FishTankBarn]

Congrats on your Xenotoca and endlers. Always kind of a risk with the tubs

[@-AndrewR]

👍🏻👍🏻

[@FishTankBarn]

Thx

[@bathyphila]

Bummer that you only got production out of one tub, but at least the Xenotoca went for you. I've had mixed success breeding poecilids outdoors myself: had minimal luck with Limia melanogaster and got a decent batch of Poecilia chica last year only to have no apparent success with that species this year. I'm pretty sure the problem with the Limia was that nights get too cool out here (I'm in the Rockies where even in midsummer the overnight lows get down into the 50s), maybe you had a similar issue since most of your tubs were shaded? The tubs I've done that stay in the shade of my house can be a full 10F cooler than those with partial sun exposure: great for goodeids, not so much for more tropical species.

[@FishTankBarn]

Thanks for commenting Bathyphila! I have found don’t really like it when it’s cooler. I have Poecilia chica and they bread at first and then stopped. I might put more goodeids in tubs next year since they seem to do pretty well for me

[@bathyphila]

@@FishTankBarn If you didn't already know, in nature Poecilia chica is found in the same streams as Ilyodon furcidens. Just broke down my Poecilia chica tub today (if you're interested I've got a video documenting it) and of the two breeders from last year and ~6 2023 juveniles I put out this spring I only pulled one of the original female breeders and two small juvies who had sexed out as male, no fry. We had a heat wave in early July that hit some of my other fish hard, which I suspect resulted in the P. chica issues - maybe they are sensitive to high temps like goodeids?